


angels in the alleyway

by jecca-o9 (talkplaylove)



Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel Joonmyun, Angel Kyungsoo, Angel Lu Han, Angel Xiumin, Angst, Assassin Kris, Blood and Violence, Character Death, M/M, Minor Oh Sehun/Zhang Yi Xing | Lay, Smut, city of angels au, forensic pathologist yixing, it literally follows the City of Angels ending so pls heed the major tags!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:22:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22164784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkplaylove/pseuds/jecca-o9
Summary: Kris is an assassin who doesn't believe in God, much less angels. So why is one following and talking to him?Or the one where Kris is an assassin, Joonmyun is an angel, and they fall in love anyway.
Relationships: Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Wu Yi Fan | Kris, Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Lu Han
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	angels in the alleyway

**Author's Note:**

> still moving fics from lj to here o/ || orginally written for suholiday exchange, 2013. 
> 
> **og notes** City of Angels!AU, sort of. Thanks to Ella, Stacey, and Belle for taking the time out of their busy schedules to beta this and especially to E and B for their moral support during the final stage. ♥ This was my suholiday fic for bulletthestars, built around these two prompts. Writing this was a roller coaster; the first part (everything around the dialogue from the prompts; the philosophy, the religion bits) was a breeze--I finished 10k by first check-in and then I struggled with the last bits (aka the feelings). GOES TO SHOW WHAT KIND OF PERSON I AM.

Joonmyun is there for Kris' first kill. He is there for the third and the fifth, too.

The first time, Kris looks at his bloody hands and starts shaking, tremors climbing up and down his spine, face twisted in an undecipherable expression. He looks young, like he should still have people taking care of him. There are specks of blood on his varsity jacket.

Joonmyun doesn't understand any of it.

Instead, he extends a hand to the body on the floor; a man, blood all over his shirt, running down the concrete, his eyes wide open. The man grasps his hand and stands.

“Thanks, mate. I thought I was—“ the man begins, before he sees his dead body on the floor. He looks up, eyes wide. Kris is walking away, towards the street, head down with his hands in pockets. Joonmyun looks at him.

The man takes in Joonmyun’s dark colored outfit—black from head to toe. “Are you the devil?” he asks weakly.

*

It’s been years since Kris’ first assignment. Years since he’s hesitated, years since his hands shook. He leans on his balcony, the cold metal sinking into his forearms, cigarette dangling from his fingers.

Kris is only twenty-six, but there's something about him that makes you believe he's older. Maybe it's the quiet way he talks, like he's measuring what to say and when to say it; maybe it's the way he stands, tall and stiff, almost like there's an unseen weight he's carrying; maybe it's the look in his eyes. They are dark, like they've seen a lot more things a normal 26-year-old should have seen.

Joonmyun supposes he has, if the amount of souls he picks up because of Kris’ hands is worth anything.

*

"Push, push," one of the nurses says encouragingly, voice only slightly muffled by the mask covering her mouth. The fluorescent lights gleam bright as Victoria looks up at them and pushes. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and her cheeks. She isn't feeling numb—far from it. The epidural block that the doctor injected earlier doesn't extend to her legs and birth canal. Victoria knows this, because they made her choose between the caudal and epidural block, and they told her she could push and move her legs better with the epidural.

She and Nichkhun had then agreed to use that method.

She forgot to wonder about how it was fucking hard and it fucking hurt. She pushes, for the nth time, her breathing labored. Through the haze of fluorescent lights and hospital smell and blue scrub suits, Victoria sees someone hovering near the doorway, watching, a look you couldn’t paint on his face.

He has beautiful eyes, thin lips and dark hair. He looks ethereal.

Except that he’s dressed in black from head to toe, like some ‘80’s rockstar, dark skinny jeans and a leather jacket.

"One final push," Victoria hears and she gives it all she's got. A crying sound fills the air and her doctor helps her lie down and relax as the nurses fuss over the newborn and cut the umbilical cord. Victoria lies down and watches as the nurses rinse the baby, and her eyes flicker over to the door.

The person in skinny jeans is gone.

Nichkhun comes in to see the baby as soon as they are both ready, which is just twenty minutes later. Victoria smiles at him, their little bundle of joy between her arms. He has ten fingers and ten toes, and Victoria swears he has Nichkhun's smile.

Victoria opens her mouth to say something, when a searing pain hits her abdomen, her stomach, her pelvis. She gasps, one hand reaching for the area and screams.

The baby starts crying.

Nichkhun's eyes are wide. "What's wrong?" he asks, hands fumbling and reaching to support them both. Victoria screams again, her insides twisting. He rings the nurse and a couple of them come in, take the screaming baby, and push Victoria down on the bed. Nichkhun is holding Victoria's hand, his knuckles turning white.

A nurse moves the sheet and there is a pool of blood on the mattress. Her face whitens and she calls for more help. Nichkhun stands there holding Victoria's hand and telling her that it's going to be okay, we're going to be family together, until he is whisked away by the nurses and told to stay outside. Victoria's eyes are shut in pain, and she opens them again when Nickhun lets go. The person in black is sitting on the makeshift couch this time, watching.

It is then that Victoria realizes.

The door stays closed for four and a half hours. Nichkhun alternates between walking outside Victoria's room and visiting their baby in the nursery.

Four hours and thirty-one minutes later, the doctor comes out and tells him to sit down amidst his questions of, "Is she all right? What happened?"

"I'm sorry."

Nichkhun drops to a seat, his vision going blurry. The walls in the hospital are surprisingly white. The doctor continues to talk about hemorrhage and how one in four women who die from childbirth do so because of it, but it feels so far away.

"You didn't even let me say goodbye," Victoria says sadly, looking at the angel. Because that's what he is, isn’t he? An angel, even with his somber outfit.

"Not a lot of people get to," is the angel's reply.

"At least I got to hold him though," Victoria says, a smile on her face.

The angel says nothing.

"What's your name?" Victoria asks, looking at him as they walk through the hospital's hallway.

"Joonmyun," the angel says. They pass by the nursery where Nichkhun is holding their baby, eyes rimmed red.

Victoria stops and looks. Joonmyun lets her.

"He's going to make a wonderful father."

"You don't know that," Joonmyun says, because it's true.

Victoria looks at him. "I do."

Joonmyun blinks at her. Victoria thinks he looks so innocent, so naive. Joonmyun thinks the same—of her.

*

Kris dreams of blood.

He always dreams of blood.

*

Joonmyun walks along the busy afternoon street. The air is humid, the sky a golden hue. His skin feels nothing; his eyes register no colors but shades of gray.

"Hi," Joonmyun greets dutifully as he comes across someone with wide eyes and pale skin. The other man lifts a hand in greeting.

"Luhan," Joonmyun says.

Luhan smiles at him, a habit he picked up from the humans. Joonmyun is new, barely created five years. He does his job without question. Like all new angels, Joonmyun is empty of anything except the desire to do his duty. There is no innate natural curiosity, no senses of touch and smell. There is sight, but they are not gifted with the ability to see color.

Luhan, though—Luhan’s been around for a while. He forms his face into expressions, expressions Joonmyun only sees while walking the human plane. Joonmyun doesn’t know why Luhan does it; it’s a bit absurd. Sometimes, Joonmyun thinks the older angels have stayed with humans for too long, they begin picking up on their habits. He doesn’t wonder what happens to angels who empathize with humans too much; he’s heard of the Legend of Lucifer since he has been sired, forever banished from His Kingdom and sent to live in Hell.

Joonmyun and Luhan stand on the corner of a street. They see Minseok with a human girl, hair dark and in waves, blood dried on her chest from two vertical wounds. Minseok leads her into an alleyway. Luhan and Joonmyun watch as a stoplight malfunctions. They watch as the cars continue to move, on the left and in front, and collide.

They walk over to the cars.

*

A phone call had come yesterday. Kris takes a drag from his cigarette, watching the street below his apartment. The homeless man from the street over is going through their block’s dumpster, edges of his ratty coat dragging along the pavement. In the apartment across his, the tenant forgot to close her drapes again. She is having sex.

He looks at the sky and exhales, smoke leaving his lips. Like most phone calls from his boss, he’s given a place and a time. He shows up, the other person shows up, he does his job. He calls his boss as he leaves; his boss sends more of his men to come in and handle the clean up two minutes after his call. Sometimes, if the victim isn’t high profile enough, they leave it at the scene. It’s all about making a statement, his boss had said.

Kris could care less. For him, it’s a job that’s efficient and pays well. It helps that Kris gave up on morality long ago.

*

Joonmyun sits on a plush chair in the Crowne Plaza. He watches as an award-winning author sits in front of his laptop and stares at the pulsing white screen. There is a sharp knife next to the machine.

On the floor is a letter from the author's wife. She had left him, with their children. She will send the divorce papers soon.

The author picks up the knife. Joonmyun stands and looks over his shoulder. The author lets the blade rest against his wrist, presses the point. Joonmyun touches his shoulder. The author drops the knife, hissing in pain. He starts sobbing, loudly. He presses his other hand to the bleeding wound, goes to the lavatory and runs it under the water. He is still sobbing, dropping to his knees, as he cleans his wound. He collapses on the floor, wrist cradled to his chest, the pressure keeping the blood in. The tears flow in several tracks on his face. The water keeps running from the golden tap.

Joonmyun watches him from the bathroom’s doorway before leaving.

Humans are funny.

Luhan touches one of the cleaning attendants on the floor below, subtly influencing his thoughts. The attendant will check on the author's room in five minutes. Luhan meets Joonmyun at a different hotel later on.

"Why do they cry?" Joonmyun asks, as they watch a couple have a very public break-up in the middle of the hotel lobby. He’s been thinking about the couple in the hospital, the tears at the corners of Victoria’s eyes when she held her child for the first time, Nichkhun’s sobs when Victoria died, how Victoria stood and watched her husband and her son before they left. It’s been a week and it’s still fresh in his mind. Joonmyun’s never had to pick up such emotionally distraught souls before—their bodies had always been dead when he’d come or they’d be pleading for their life, or angry. Never crying.

Pick-ups are usually an in-and-out thing. He’s been doing it for years. He’s never lingered like he did at that hospital before.

(Well, maybe he has. Once. His very first assignment, almost five years ago, with the stabbing in the alleyway, with the tall human called Kris and the man who asked him if he was the devil.)

"Because they're hurt," Luhan says, hands in his pockets. They watch the girl leave, leaving a very dumbfounded Chinese man in her wake.

"But sometimes when they're," Joonmyun stops and thinks about the word, "happy, they cry too."

He remembers the smiles on Victoria’s and Nihckhun’s faces.

Luhan shrugs. "They're human. They feel too much." He smiles. "Don't you want to know what that's like?"

"Not really," he says, thoughtfully. "From what I've seen, having such a wide range of emotions seems like such a mess."

Luhan looks at him and smiles. Joonmyun hates it, a little bit. He may not be a master of human emotions or facial expressions, but he knows that that smile means that Joonmyun is still young, and he has much to learn.

"Don't you want to try and eat? The variety of food these people have. And to smell things," Luhan says, words pouring out of his mouth like an enticing melody.

Joonmyun thinks it over. Smell and taste—he never had them, so he never wanted them. You don’t miss the things you never had. He could travel wherever and whenever he wanted—no bulky transportation machines needed. He could live forever and he doesn’t have to spend his lifetime agonizing over his purpose or the meaning of his life because he actually had one.

"No," Joonmyun says, smiling up at Luhan. This was an appropriate time for a smile, right? "Don't be silly."

Luhan looks at him. "Huh."

"I would," another voice pops up. They turn to look. Minseok is there, sitting on one of the hotels pillars. When he says his next sentence, Luhan and Joonmyun are sitting next to him. "I would like to find out what a burger tastes like."

"I'd like to stand under the rain," Luhan says, hiding a smile under his hand. “Find out what the difference between damp pavement and damp grass is.”

"Feel the cold," Minseok supplies.

"Smell flowers."

“To touch someone and actually feel something.”

“And feel the whole spectrum of human emotion?” Joonmyun asks, a little skeptically.

“It’s not like we don’t have any emotions,” Minseok says. “Or rather, it’s not like we don’t have the capacity to have any.”

Angels had no sense of touch but that didn’t mean they didn’t have the capacity for feelings or emotion—they just weren’t attuned to it like humans were.

Luhan hums in agreement. “You just have to learn how. Be careful, though. Once you open it—once you manage to learn to feel things inside, it never stops.”

A quiet settles over them. They watch the people walk in the lobby, watched a few of their kind mingle with the people, guiding them, helping them make decisions.

Joonmyun glances at Luhan and Minseok and thinks they've been stationed in the human world too long.

*

 _Eighteen_ , Kris counts in his head, hand wiping the blood on his cheek. He picks up his phone and dials as he leaves the alleyway. It’s a high-profile victim this time. He does those occasionally; he is a government employee after all. And the government have a lot of people they want silenced.

He sees a man in a black jacket standing at the end of the street and it stops him in his tracks. His blood runs cold, hand reaching for the gun in his pocket.

He tells himself to calm down, that maybe the man hadn’t seen anything. But then even if he hadn’t, he would have heard the shot. A silencer can only do so much.

The man turns around, looks at Kris— _what’s he looking at me for_ —and walks back toward the body. He’s in dark pants, a black leather jacket. His hair is red, and his skin is pale. It dimly registers in Kris’ mind that he is good looking, but it’s a thought buried deep—right now, he’s more worried about getting caught.

“Stop,” Kris says, hand firmly on his gun, aimed at the man.

The man doesn’t stop.

“I’m warning you,” Kris says, frowning. His hand shakes. He’s never killed an innocent person before. And in Kris’ world, innocent is everybody that isn’t delivered to him to silence.

The man stops, turns. His face is blank. He blinks.

“Stay away from there,” Kris says.

The man’s mouth drops open, something like confusion passing over his eyes. Kris isn’t sure; the man makes such minimal facial expressions he might as well have none. The man shakes his head, turns back and walks to the body.

No choice.

Kris’ hand shakes a little as he aims; his finger spasms on the trigger. He feels like throwing up. He fires.

The bullet goes through the man and etches itself in the wall.

The man turns and looks at him, eyes wide. Kris stares. His gun drops.

That’s it, then. He’s finally gone crazy.

Kris watches, eyes still wide in shock as the man finally reaches the body. He extends a hand to it. He leaves on the opposite end of the alleyway, taking one last look at Kris. He passes by three men that pull up in the alleyway. The three guys don’t seem to notice the man in the leather jacket; instead, they look at Kris.

“You should be out of here already,” one of them says gruffly, bending over the body.

Kris blinks. He mentally shakes himself out of his stupor, nods, bends down to pick up his gun. He thanks whatever luck he has that he’s under the shadows, so the men can’t see his face.

He strolls out of the alleyway as fast as he can without looking suspicious and makes a note to stop for booze before he heads home. He needs it.

*

Joonmyun is troubled.

"No one can see you unless you want them to," Luhan says, legs swinging idly.

“Has it been done before?” Joonmyun asks.

“Of course,” Luhan says, smiling. “I do it on occasion.”

Joonmyun looks at him, surprised. “Why?”

Luhan nods. “Sometimes I get bored. I like going to parks. I sit there on the bench and let people see me.” His smile turns wider. “Sometimes girls come up to me and ask me out. Sometimes I say yes. She drinks coffee. I tell her stories about heaven. She says I’ll be a great fiction author.”

Joonmyun looks at Minseok. Minseok’s eyes crinkle. He doesn’t share anything, but Joonmyun knows he’s done it too.

“How come I never knew about this?” Joonmyun blinks.

Minseok and Luhan laugh. “You never wanted to.”

Luhan smiles. “The new ones don’t look for ways to experience the human ways. We’re not programmed to do so. But… after a while, there are some things that you can’t ignore. Things that open up all your potential—for wonder, for thinking, for wanting more…”

Minseok looks at Luhan, who’s looking at the traffic below them.

“So what do you want to do?” Minseok asks. His question is directed at Joonmyun, even if he isn’t looking at him.

“Smell? Taste? Touch? We still can’t do any of that though. We can just pretend,” Luhan says sadly.

Joonmyun shakes his head. “None of that. I don’t… Some guy just saw me. Without me meaning him to.”

“Oh?” Luhan asks. _Oh_. It can mean so many things.

“What were you thinking when it happened?” Minseok asks. _No one can see you unless you want them to._

Joonmyun thinks. “That I’ve seen him kill so many times before.”

“It bothers you?” Minseok asks.

“Not exactly. He was responsible for my first assignment. Things like that, you don’t forget. He just seems…different now. I guess I might have wanted to have a conversation with him.”

Minseok and Luhan exchange looks.

“Why?”

Joonmyun shrugs, frowns. He thinks of the bullet passing through him, an object going through him like he is nothing, the different tone of Kris’ voice when Kris talked to him. "I don’t know."

*

Kris fingers wrap around the bars of his solitary cell.

“It’s a mess,” his boss had grumbled over the phone. “Get back in until it dies down. An extra bullet was found at the scene—did he try running or something? Did he know why he was sent there?”

“I—no, it went as usual. I was just careless with my safety after,” Kris had lied.

His boss had tutted. “If you can’t handle this anymore—“

“I can.” Kris had said, even if he isn’t entirely sure. He wondered how it would go over if he said he might need to see a therapist. “I won’t mess up next time.”

“You better not. I like you,” his boss had said. Kris had taken it to mean he likes Kris’ work. Kris had never seen his boss face. There was a final warning and the line went dead.

So here he is, back in this place again. It’s not a big deal—he’s pretty lucky to be able to get in and out, live a partly normal life. He’s been in and out of this place after the orphanage until one day, one of the older inmates asked him if he’d wanted a job—put his energy to better use. He’d laughed; what could an old man stuck in jail offer him?

Turned out, it was a lot of money and freedom. And his own jail cell, if he needed to come back in.

He hadn’t looked back since. It’s a system that works—after all, how could someone get caught if all documents prove and cops swear he has always been in jail in the first place? Even a corrupt government—a corrupt system—had its way of working. Kris deals with people that the government needs to disappear. And they do.

He doesn’t like to think about if what he’s doing is right or wrong. To take a human life, most would say he’s playing God. He’s not God; just an executioner. His employer is the one playing God.

Kris has lost faith in morality and God long ago.

“Who’s there?” Kris squints at a shadow outside of his cell.

Joonmyun looks around, but the place is as empty as when he first arrived. He walks forward, still in the shadows, but definitely in Kris’ line of sight. He wonders what to say.

“You in the leather jacket,” Kris says, voice calm. “Why are you here?”

There’s no answer. The silence makes Kris uneasy and puts him on his guard. He bends and discreetly tugs the knife hidden in his boot.

“Who are you and what do you want,” Kris’ voice has turned low. His hand trembles for a moment before it steadies.

“I don’t know,” the man admits. “My name is Joonmyun. I don’t know.”

What the fuck.

“You don’t know—what?”

“I was answering your questions. In the order you asked them,” the man called Joonmyun says.

“How did you get in here?” Kris asks. It’s night time and people can’t just stroll in jail, much less the corner he’s hidden in. He wonders if this man is here to kill him; maybe his employer thinks he’s becoming a liability, despite his words.

“I just did,” Joonmyun says.

Kris lets out a bark of a laugh. He’s not going down without a fight. “You here to kill me then?”

“What?” Joonmyun sounds bewildered. “No. That’s your job.”

“What?” Kris is thrown for a loop. A victim, knowing he’s going to be killed, delivering himself to Kris’ jail cell? It doesn’t make any sense.

Joonmyun sighs, a sound of frustration in the darkness. “Shall we start over? I’m not human.”

It’s as good as confirming that Kris has gone crazy.

*

“What are you then?”

“An angel.”

“I think I’m having a nightmare.”

*

Of course, Kris adapts and takes advantage of the situation. So maybe he is dreaming, or he is going crazy, or this man—the same man at the alleyway that night, the one that a bullet passed through—is the crazy one, but he takes it in stride. Angels, huh?

Kris didn’t reach the age of twenty-six doing what he does without learning to adapt and survive.

He would indulge in this stranger’s crazy if it meant he’d stay alive. He baits him into a discussion on angels, on God and heaven and hell, hoping to agitate him and make him—either leave, or make a move, or—anything, just spur him to action. Because for Kris, action means movement, and movement means something Kris could handle; especially since Joonmyun looks like someone he could take down. Standing still usually means thinking, thinking means planning, and someone with the capacity to plan and outwit is always that little bit more dangerous than someone who is just physically aggressive. That extra _little bit_ is the difference between life and death.

“But— _this_ —is hell,” Joonmyun is saying. “Is it not this? Poverty, famine, selfishness, the search for knowledge and purpose that can never be attained?”

Kris looks at him. “Where do your souls go?”

Joonmyun shrugs. “Heaven. Or Hell.” He looks at Kris. “Hell is just a rebirth. If The One Upstairs judges that one is not worthy enough, the soul is sent back to where he came from. Here, that’s the human world.”

“Don’t they enter the kingdom of heaven? Ha. That word—kingdom. Makes for such a proud God. Who let him be king, anyway?” Kris sits on his bed, one leg drawn up to his chest.

“The One Upstairs is the beginning and the end.” Joonmyun is still outside, half in shadow. Kris wonders if Joonmyun is deformed. Maybe that’s why he had such a good-looking face (from what Kris remembered in the dark alleyway, anyway) and it would explain the lack of facial expressions. Maybe he really was an angel and that was his human mask.

“So His authority is unquestionable.”

“Yes.”

“And if anyone dares to question Him, then they’ll be thrown out.”

“I don’t know.“

“For an angel, you sure don’t know a lot of things,” Kris observes.

“I am not made to know, or learn,” Joonmyun replies, face still blank. Kris wishes he would show some kind of emotion.

“Okay. But those who question your God—they’re tossed out of heaven, right? Because that’s what happened to Lucifer, didn’t it?”

“That’s hearsay,” Joonmyun says.

“Yeah, but all rumors—urban legends, even—have to come from someplace,” Kris says.

Joonmyun is quiet.

Unnerved—if this Joonmyun truly is an angel, then he shouldn’t be doubting his God, or thinking that Kris had a point, right? “Anyway, good and evil—they’re all the same to me,” Kris says, leaning back against the wall.

“He does not judge based on good or evil. That’s just something you humans made up to make your lives mean something.”

“Then how the fuck does he judge the entrance to heaven? If not from the good deeds, thoughts, and actions?” Kris’ eyebrow twitches.

“I don’t presume to know what The One Upstairs thinks. We are made to serve our purpose. Then, I’d wager, that humans entrance into the kingdom hinges on the fulfillment of their purpose,” Joonmyun says, cool as you please.

“So if your God thinks I’m doing my purpose—then I am granted entrance to the kingdom of heaven?”

Joonmyun nods. “You send souls back to us.”

Kris laughs. He doesn’t stop for a long time.

“I think I’m going crazy,” Kris finally says. “I can’t believe I am having this discussion with you, you’re probably not even real.”

“I’m as real as you are.” Kris pretends Joonmyun is frowning. It is better than the stoic face he has.

“Well, that helps,” Kris says.

“You say you don’t believe in good and evil,” Joonmyun says. “But why does the idea of you getting in heaven make you react that way?”

Kris glares at him. He avoids the question. “If I get into heaven, will I turn into an angel like you?”

Joonmyun misses the sarcasm. “Angels aren’t human. We were never human.”

Kris looks surprised by this. He looks away.

“Why do you do what you do if you don’t think it’s your purpose?”

Because it needs to be done. Because someone needs to do it. Because it’s how I earn a living. Because some people—good people—live their life in the right way and still get killed for stupid reasons. Because the world isn’t fair. Because it’s the lot I drew in life. Because it’s the path I chose to follow.

“Because for someone like me, this was the easiest job to get hired in.” These answers are all true. Kris wonders if someone is taping this conversation to use against him later.

“Huh,” Joonmyun says.

Kris looks at him and is suddenly hit with the understanding that it’s not just facial expressions Joonmyun doesn’t have. Joonmyun doesn’t have empathy; maybe he even has a hard time feeling emotions. They had a term for that—some medical condition that Kris can’t remember.

“Show me your wings,” Kris says. As he says it, he realizes he doesn’t know what he’d do if Joonmyun does have wings, if he is really is an angel.

“I don’t have any. That’s another misconception you people have.”

“Some angel you are,” Kris mutters under his breath. This Joonmyun is breaking all his stereotypes about religious entities. Joonmyun talks of picking up souls as his duty and of Kris killing like it is a fucking predestined purpose. Kris doesn’t believe in good or evil. He can say that all he wants. He can convince himself he feels no guilt every time a person dies by his hands. But it’s late, and it’s _that_ time of the night where his thoughts are clear and looking at him and Joonmyun—Joonmyun is what it means to be truly neutral; to not believe in good and evil; to put no value to a human life because he doesn’t understand it. Joonmyun sees humans as nothing more than a job, souls to be ferried to the afterlife.

“You’re a robot,” Kris says. As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he wonders if Joonmyun knows what he’s talking about.

Joonmyun blinks, thrown off at being compared to a man-made machine.

“Once again, I assure you this is not a nightmare and you are fully awake,” Joonmyun says. “I’m an angel.”

“What’s the difference?” Kris asks.

Joonmyun doesn’t have an answer.

*

Three days later, Joonmyun visits him again.

“I’ve definitely gone crazy,” Kris says again, once he catches sight of Joonmyun.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Joonmyun asks.

“It’s too late for me to grow a conscience,” Kris says. “And you are definitely a figment of my imagination. So, I am going crazy.”

Joonmyun walks closer to the bars and now, Kris can see his face. Kris is in more doubt of his sanity now, but at the same time a part of him whispers that his own imagination could never think of something that beautiful.

Joonmyun wraps his hand around Kris’ on the bars. Kris jolts at the touch.

“Am I real enough now for you?” Joonmyun asks.

Then he does something no human could ever do; he lets his hand pass _through_ Kris, like a ghost.

And at that moment, Kris knows he is well and truly fucked.

*

Joonmyun finds himself drawn to Kris. He keeps visiting. He and Kris talk—about philosophy, about the existence of God and humanity, about what it means to be good and evil. Kris says he doesn’t believe in good and evil, but Joonmyun’s come to see that Kris views himself as evil, despite anything he says. That piques Joonmyun’s interest even more because he’s beginning to see that humans are such complex creatures; even if good and evil are just human concepts to Joonmyun, he’s beginning to slowly understand this moral compass these humans have and the irony it holds.

To view oneself as ‘evil’—does that not mean their moral compass is ‘good’ or at least pointed towards that direction? That they can see this distinction clearly and can categorize their actions appropriately, doesn’t that mean they are not as ‘evil’ as they think?

Of course, this knowledge alone does not excuse their ‘evil’ actions in any way. But the fact stands that truly ‘evil’ people have gone down in human history doing things they _believed_ were good—like political leaders who almost wiped out an entire religion all for what they believed was ‘good’ and ‘pure’. Like leaders of nations subjugating others and spreading lies about the supposed lack of ‘civilization’ in those nations to justify slavery and colonization.

Joonmyun thinks people who _are_ evil do not actually believe they are, or what they do, evil.

Joonmyun is also beginning to see that what humans think—or what they think they think don’t exactly translate into actions or vice-versa. Even the words that come out of their mouth and the actions they do could be completely different.

There is one night where Kris is quiet throughout the whole night. His food is untouched in his cell. He is awake, eyes wide open, but he doesn’t speak. Joonmyun sits with him until Kris’ eyes close.

Luhan smiles at Joonmyun like he knows something Joonmyun doesn’t. Minseok just tells him to be careful.

Joonmyun doesn’t understand what the fuss is about.

*

“So you can’t taste, can’t feel, can’t see colors. But you also can’t get hurt, can’t feel fear, and other emotions,” Kris says.

Joonmyun nods.

“And you live forever. Seems like a decent enough bargain to me. Where do I sign up?”

Joonmyun looks at him like he’s grown an extra head. Kris celebrates a little internally because, hey, that was an expression on Joonmyun’s face.

“I’ve told you before. Angels were never human.”

Kris sighs. “Are all angels as serious as you?”

“I’m serious?” Joonmyun asks.

“Yeah,” Kris says. “Try smiling. It makes you look less constipated.”

Kris wonders why God hasn’t struck him down with lightning yet.

*

Weeks pass with them talking, ultimately getting to know more of each other through their opinions, the way they challenge each others’ ideas without getting at irked at each other for having different views. Kris thinks getting mad over a difference in opinion is a tad childish and mostly a waste of time, while Joonmyun has taken to compartmentalizing human knowledge, to further analyze and think about later. They also talk about things other than philosophy, mostly about their own worlds.

One night, Joonmyun doesn’t visit.

Kris’ cell is quiet and solitary. Cold. Dark. And so, so, alone.

Kris’ eyes fall closed against his will, the shadows enveloping him in their grip. He wakes up frowning the next morning, and Chanyeol, the police officer assigned to his case (one of his employer’s people too), comments on his bad mood. Kris says nothing, but is bothered to realize he was waiting for Joonmyun. At first, his ire is directed at Joonmyun for not coming, but soon it’s directed at himself for _expecting_ Joonmyun to come.

He tries not to think too hard about what that means.

Joonmyun notices that Kris is a little more quiet, a little more gruff with his answers that night. He says nothing about it. Humans have mood swings, he knew that much.

Another time, Kris tries to tell Joonmyun how his favorite season is spring because of the varied colors, the natural way everything blooms and comes to life, purples and yellows and greens and whites, before he realizes he can’t describe it adequately to Joonmyun—who has seen spring, of course, but hasn’t seen spring through human eyes, human senses.

Joonmyun describes his job perfunctorily, picking-up and escorting to the heaven’s stairway to get judged. He barely remembers the names of the souls he’s picked up and sent.

Kris turns quiet. He remembers the faces of all the people he has killed.

*

After three months, a call is put through for Kris’ release. He goes out the back way, as usual. His cell will remain empty, paper trail still proving he is there.

Chanyeol waves him off merrily and tells him to use condoms.

Kris knows he should be glad, but he can’t help but wonder if Joonmyun knows where to find him now.

*

Joonmyun turns up at Kris’ apartment the same day he is released. Kris thinks he shouldn’t be surprised, but he is just the same, and he fights the jolt in his stomach that says he is pleased.

Kris drinks to celebrate his release, cold beer guzzling down his throat. He smokes at the privacy of his own balcony. His neighbor has left her drapes open again.

“You say your God doesn’t judge on the merits of good and evil, right?” Kris says. The moon is full, bright against the sky. Kris blows smoke rings towards it.

“Yes,” Joonmyun says. He sits on the balcony railing, legs swinging idly. Kris has an absurd urge to tug his wrist, make him come in lest he should fall. But Joonmyun’s an angel; he says he feels no pain, so falling wouldn’t even hurt him if he did fall. Kris focuses on talking instead.

“If people are judged on the merits of purpose, then do people die without fulfilling their purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Then why? Why doesn’t your all powerful God make it so that everyone achieves their purpose?”

Joonmyun shrugs. He doesn’t know. He was never taught to ask.

“Is there no space left in heaven?” Kris asks sardonically, tapping his cigarette on the balcony. Ashes fall to the street. “Do people have to be sent to hell—or as you say, repeatedly sent back here? Is that His plan?”

“Maybe.” Joonmyun frowns. He likes talking to Kris. He likes watching Kris’ face. He can’t really put a finger as to the reasons why, but he does. But the questions Kris asks bother him.

Kris is silent.

Maybe it’s the moon. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s back home after three months in that lonely cell. Maybe it’s the comfort of his apartment, his things, his life. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s still talking to this angel. Maybe the tide is high and the moon’s pull is making him act in weird ways. Maybe it’s because Joonmyun sat with him in silence that one night (or maybe it’s just Joonmyun).

Kris starts telling Joonmyun about his life. There was a fire, then there was the orphanage. Then there were the years of being ignored as the smaller children, the children with less traumatic pasts got homes—and he stayed there, unloved, undeserving of a home. But that was okay, because in the orphanage was Tao. Tao stuck to him like glue, a little brother he never had. Tao never got adopted either but that was fine because he dreamt of enlisting in the army anyway. He had his life planned at fifteen. Then the robbers came. Until now, Kris doesn’t know why they targeted the orphanage; it was just like any other orphanage—not enough money, not enough room (later they learned that five houses on their block were also burglarized). But they did, and there were guns, and Kris—Kris always thought he could do anything, and at seventeen he believed it.

“There were guns and there I was right in front of one,” Kris says. “And then all of a sudden, I wasn’t. I heard a gunshot, then Tao’s on the floor next to me, and then there was blood everywhere…”

Joonmyun is still working on recognizing human emotions—they were much more complicated than angel's—but he knew something was wrong. Kris talks calmly, his face as if what he is recounting didn't bother him one bit. That is when Joonmyun realizes that was exactly was wrong. Humans would have shown fear, or sadness, or joy, or even tears. Kris didn't show any of those.

"It's not your fault," Joonmyun says quietly. The room is still. He wishes he could do something to comfort Kris, but he is clueless. "It was his time."

Kris shakes his head, slowly. "It was meant for me, it was—"

"It was his time," Joonmyun says again, harder this time. Joonmyun knows that it is his purpose, his function to pick up souls. He's been doing so for years and he’s maybe collected some twenty-three thousand humans after his creation. He knows it isn't his fault, that it is simply the end of the humans' lifespan. He doesn't understand human emotions when they cry, doesn't know the feeling of loss and longing and could never empathize. But sometimes, sometimes, it does cross his mind why The One Upstairs gave these beings the ability to feel so much emotions, so much pain, when death came to them every day.

Maybe that's why they couldn't live forever.

*

Kris leaves the orphanage at seventeen. After the incident, they had to cut costs and Kris was old enough and strong enough to go on his own. He didn’t want to stay there anyway.

Living alone proved harder than he thought, especially when no one would hire him because of his questionable background and lack of any work experience. Pretty soon, he was stealing. And getting caught.

At least the jail supplied meals three times a day, facilities, and minimal clothing. There was even a library.

“The other day,” Kris says, “was his birthday. He’d have been twenty-four. He could be doing well at the army, if he were alive.”

Joonmyun wants to say, _You don’t know that,_ but he remembers dark eyes, a strong gaze, the echo of a baby’s cry.

He keeps his mouth shut.

They sit in silence.

*

"How do they have blind faith?" Joonmyun asks. When Luhan frowns, Joonmyun explains what Victoria had said before she left this plane, about how Nichkhun would be a good father even though she didn’t know the future. He doesn't mention Kris and his equally strong conviction that his childhood friend would have turned out to be a “good” man.

Luhan smiles, looks at him. "It's love, Joonmyun-ah."

"It has no basis," Joonmyun says, confused.

Luhan smiles again. "That's what makes the humans interesting. Living their lives based on feelings. It's what makes their lives worth it."

"How do you know?" Joonmyun asks, furrowing his brows.

Luhan looks at him, the way he did when Joonmyun admitted to following Kris.

"I've been around them long enough," Luhan finally says, as he watches the bustling city lights.

*

“Tell me about love,” Joonmyun says that night. They are walking along a harbor. It’s a Friday, and there are fireworks tonight. Kris likes watching the fireworks. It reminds him there’s still beauty in the world.

Kris fidgets, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t look at Joonmyun. “I’m not the best person to ask about that.”

“Is love included in the list of things you don’t believe in?” Joonmyun asks.

“Don’t make this sound like a romantic movie,” Kris grumbles. And in a fit of honesty (or a desire to prove Joonmyun wrong, he’s not sure which), “And I do believe in love. I just don’t believe that the kind of love that I want—I don’t think it will happen for me.”

“So it is a thing that happens?” Joonmyun says.

They stop by the bay and Kris looks up, waiting for the show to start. He wonders if the fireworks would still be magical in black and white.

“Sort of. But sometimes you just know?”

“How?”

Kris struggles to come up with an answer that will satisfy Joonmyun, that will adequately explain this apparently human concept to an ethereal being. Finally, Kris sighs.

“You need feelings for that, Joonmyun.”

*

“I always ask the dying what they like best about living,” Luhan says, feet swinging idly. They sit on top of stop lights at the intersection, traffic flowing beneath them.

Trust Luhan to carry actual conversations with the dead.

“And?” Joonmyun asks. A car races past below him, faster than the speed limit allows.

Luhan smiles.

*

Joonmyun thinks he’s been doing well at understanding humans so far, but love—love is just the most confusing concept. These species seem to both aspire and long for it, going as far as to categorize it into different kinds and whether they are deserving of it, yet they are entrenched by it in their daily lives and they don’t even notice.

Humans.

And strangely enough, Joonmyun finds himself beginning to think it might be a little interesting to be one, living in that world of complexity.

*

“Why are you here?” Kris asks, eyes unfocused. There are foil wrappers on the coffee table. His gun is on the table too.

“I…” Joonmyun is at a loss.

“Not why are you here right now,” Kris says, “Just…why do you come see me?”

Joonmyun breathes. He says the only thing he truly understands. “You’re interesting.”

“Huh,” Kris says intelligently. He’s a little disappointed and he doesn’t know why. He refuses to examine why. Instead, he stares at the ceiling. He sees the pool of blood from this evening outlined on the dark panels. He closes his eyes to block the vision. “Don’t you think your God envies us humans.”

“How so?”

“Human lives are beautiful. We are alive only so we can die. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed. Any moment could be our last. Every touch, every feeling is something to be treasured and kept. But you and Him? You’ll live forever. Your memories will all fade into each other, and you won’t be able to tell where one starts and the other begins. The people you meet will be so extensive—the experiences you have—that everything will just be a repetition, like a broken gramophone.”

Joonmyun shrugs. Kris doesn’t see.

“Also, it must be lonely. Living that long.” Kris is freshly showered; he always is, after nights like this. He always sees blood swirl down the drain—he knows there is never any, but he thinks it just the same. Sometimes there are bodies lying on the tile, with their eyes and mouths hanging open, exactly as he left them in alleys and dark corners.

“He’s The One Upstairs.” Joonmyun replies. It’s a reply he’s made with; _He’s The One Upstairs_. That’s all he needs to know.

“So he doesn’t get lonely?” Kris asks, skeptical eyebrow raised. Joonmyun thinks Kris is blessed in eyebrows. “You seem lonely.”

“I don’t own emotions,” Joonmyun says.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Kris says, maybe sounding a little harder than he intends to be.

Joonmyun leaves.

*

Joonmyun sits on top of a stoplight, his legs dangling off the edge. He watches the cars pass below him. The traffic is awful this time of the night; cars honk and people scream at each other. Still, he finds himself unaffected by it all, more focused on the words playing around in his head, like a fast-paced tennis match.

_You’re a robot._

_Keep telling yourself that._

These words bother Joonmyun. More than Kris’ opposing views, opinions that he can respect, these words bother Joonmyun the most.

The worst thing is—he doesn’t understand why they do.

They’re just words.

*

Joonmyun decides to find the body Kris left that night. It must have been something substantial because Kris has never acted like that after doing his duty before. At least, not until he met Joonmyun.

She’s still on the floor, eyes empty. People in uniforms are taking photos of her, yellow tape around the area. This happens sometimes—Joonmyun doesn’t know the difference, why some people get hidden in a drum, filled with cement and tossed in a river, while some are left at the crime scene. Pretty soon, her body is placed in a bag and brought to a different place, sterile and with lots of equipment. A young man—around Kris’ age, maybe a little younger—accepts the body, places her on a table. His name tag says Yixing. Yixing and a couple of other people work on the body, opening her up and looking at her insides, talking and making notes.

Night has fallen and Yixing is the only one left in the laboratory.

Joonmyun watches as Yixing washes his hands. The body has been stitched up again, with the conclusion that she died from the wounds on her chest. Yixing coughs a little, and Joonmyun watches as his frame shakes. To be human and to have such a fragile body. He looks at the corpse on the table. To bleed and then to die.

Death must be an experience too. He thinks of Kris and of his treatise on how human lives are more beautiful because of the ticking clock above their heads. He wonders if it’s true.

“Hello,” Yixing says quietly. “I don’t mean to be rude—but why are you here? There’s nothing for you here.”

Joonmyun blinks.

Yixing turns to look at him. He looks at Joonmyun straight in the eyes.

Not again, Joonmyun thinks.

“Unless you’re here for me?” A crease furrows Yixing’s brow. He looks out the window, as if expecting something to come out and—Joonmyun doesn’t know what, exactly.

Joonmyun finally finds his voice. “You can see me?”

The corner of Yixing’s mouth lifts up. “You’re not here for me, then. That’s good.” He pushes the metal bed containing the body inside a drawer, writes something down on the clipboard hanging from his neck.

“How?” Joonmyun asks. He wonders if he’s been slipping so much—two humans acknowledging his presence, actually seeing him—he wonders if there are more times he’s unconsciously let people see him.

He wonders what that says about him.

“I was like you, once.” Yixing says and that’s when Joonmyun’s whole world stops.

"You can be anywhere you want to be. You travel in the blink of an eye. You have no sense of touc—you can touch, but you can't feel it. You do whatever you are made to do," Yixing says, eyes on the road, voice calm and melodic.

Joonmyun sits next to him in his car.

At the next stop light, Yixing looks at him and smiles. "The stairway to heaven is in the alleyway near the —— intersection."

Joonmyun swallows.

"Do you believe me now?" Yixing asks.

The light turns green.

"Why did you do it?" Joonmyun asks.

Yixing smiles. His voice is quiet. "I fell in love."

Joonmyun frowns. A horn beeps from behind them. Yixing turns his eyes back to the road. He keeps talking."I was drawn to him like I was to no other. I wanted to see him every day, touch him. The longing to touch, to feel, had never been as intense as that moment."

They sit in silence. If Joonmyun had a beating heart, he imagined it would be heard throughout the car, _thump thump thump_.

"How did you do it?" Joonmyun asks.

They turn and stop at another red light. Luhan is sitting on top of the metal, looking down at them. "You just fall," Yixing says, looking at the light as if he could see Luhan. Luhan lifts two fingers up in salute.

The light flickers to green. Joonmyun sits still.

They arrive at Yixing's apartment. Yixing turns the car engine off.

"Is it worth it?" Joonmyun finally asks.

A light flickers in Yixing's eyes. "Yes."

*  
Yixing’s apartment is neat—and sparse. The barest essentials for a human are there and not much else. There’s a photo on the coffee table. Joonmyun looks at it.

“Is that him?”

Yixing looks over at him, at the photo on the coffee table. “No.”

Joonmyun looks at him.

"The person I gave up immortality for… I think we weren't meant to be together," Yixing says carefully, as if it were a minefield.

"Why are you still smiling?" Joonmyun asks.

"I am?" Yixing laughs, hand coming up to cover the wistful smile from his face. There’s an indent on his cheek when he smiles. "We need to work on your emotion recognition, Joonmyun-ah."

Joonmyun looks away. "But you said taking the fall was worth it."

"It was. It is."

"I don't understand," Joonmyun says, again. The more Joonmyun talks to humans the more he realizes he can’t understand them at all. They defy logic!

"Humans are so fragile," Yixing murmurs. "Their bodies, their relationships can fall apart so easily. Still, I don't regret a single thing."

The doorbell rings. Yixing looks at the door in surprise. After a second, he moves past Joonmyun to the door.

“Hyung.” A tall boy is standing at the doorway, hands jammed into his pockets. Joonmyun recognizes him as the one in the photo.

Yixing blinks. “It’s Thursday. And it’s late. Don’t you have class tomorrow?”

The boy shrugs. “Our morning class got cancelled… so I thought I’d come see you tonight.”

Yixing smiles at him and Joonmyun wishes he was better at reading emotions, because there is something different about this smile than the ones he’s shown Joonmyun so far.

“Okay, I was just getting dinner ready.”

“I already ate. It’s 10 o’clock, hyung.”

Yixing laughs. “I know, but we got a call for a body when we were about to go home—you know, crime knows no hours.”

The boy with slanted eyes and a long face sits on the countertop, backs of his shoes hitting the cupboards rhythmically, while Yixing looks through the refrigerator. The back of his jacket says SEHUN in large letters.

“Hyung,” he says, head tilted slightly to the side. Joonmyun thinks he’s trying to convey something with his eyes, only Joonmyun can’t read it.

Yixing glances at Joonmyun quickly, an empty spot to Sehun’s eyes, before he lets out a chuckle. He stands and walks over to Sehun, placing his hands on Sehun’s knees, lifting his face up. Their lips meet, fingers tangling together. Joonmyun blinks.

He takes it as his cue to leave.

*

“What did you like best about living?” Joonmyun asks. The top stoplight lights up. They walk forward, among the cars.

“Pancakes,” Amber decides.

*

“Is loving just about touching?” Joonmyun asks.

Kris pushes through the fog of sleep, reacts out of instinct at the sound, hand moving under his pillow to curl around the edges of a knife. He looks at Joonmyun blearily. The sheets rustle under him. “Fuck. What time is it.”

“It’s seven of your hours.”

Sunlight tries to seep through the dark curtains.

“Fuck,” Kris says again. He closes his eyes. Slowly, his grip on the knife loosens.

Joonmyun repeats his question.

Kris grumbles into his pillow. “It’s seven in the morning, what are you doing here.”

“I believe we have already established the answer to that question,” Joonmyun says. Then he smiles, remembering that Kris told him to do so.

“Ugh,” Kris grumbles. “I mean—don’t you only come out at night.”

“Well, that’s absurd. I’m an angel, not a vampire.”

Kris glares at him.

“Is loving just about touching?” Joonmyun asks. “Kissing?”

“You’ve turned into a broken record,” Kris grumbles. He sits up, his hair tousled. He is not wearing a shirt. “No, loving is not just about sex.”

Joonmyun stares.

“What?” Kris asks.

Joonmyun looks up. He finds himself forming a smile to cover the foreign feeling of uneasiness. “So what is love about?”

“You’re an angel. Weren’t you made to—you know, never mind.” Kris says. “Love is… about somebody else. To care for somebody else, outside of your own happiness. To choose to make someone else happy. To choose to commit to another person, or a cause, or whatever, and to see it through. Not that I’d know if it actually works out that way.” Kris hits his pillow repeatedly, then lies back on it. “I’m going back to bed, it’s too early for this.”

Then as a joke, he adds, “Either get in here or leave.”

“I don’t need sleep,” Joonmyun says and disappears.

Kris pretends he’s not disappointed and that he doesn’t care. Joonmyun’s an angel, after all. And Kris? He’s just a killer.

Blood seeps into his dreams again.

*

“What did you like best about living?” Joonmyun asks. The lights change. The cars move forward. They do too, following another angel—Kyungsoo—who is guiding a small boy to the stairway in the alleyway.

“Books,” Seohyun says, smiling dreamily.

*

“You said the person you fell for wasn’t meant for you,” Joonmyun says.

Joonmyun finds himself in Yixing’s living room again. Yixing is drinking coffee, papers on his desk.

“That was the simplest way to put it,” Yixing says. “More accurately, the he that existed at that point in time and the being that I was at that point in time were not able to make things work.”

“Somebody told me that loving someone was choosing to see it through ‘til the end.” Joonmyun says.

Yixing smiles. Sadness, Joonmyun thinks. “I did. Until the end, until he told me that he did not love me anymore.”

“But how could you live with it? Knowing you wanted him. Knowing you…loved him.” Joonmyun asks. Yixing brings to him a new perspective, one that differs from Kris and Luhan’s. It’s not fully human, and not fully angel observing a human. Yixing is someone who’s lived as both and maybe understands both.

Yixing makes a noncommittal noise. “I’ve realized that sometimes, we lose important things… to open the path for us to find something better.”

“But how can one be sure of that?” Joonmyun asks.

“You’re not,” Yixing says. “You’ll never really know the outcomes of the ‘what-ifs’… what if I fell later, when we could handle being together? All I know is the now… and now, I’m happy with what I have.”

It’s quiet for a while, the air filled with things they know are present but don’t dare talk about.

“Were you lonely?” Joonmyun asks instead.

Yixing looks at him and understands that Joonmyun means _were you lonely in heaven?_

“Thinking about it,” Yixing pauses. “I suppose I was. Camaraderie as an angel…it’s different, than when you’re human. As angels… we talk to each other as colleagues. The ability to care for each other… angels who care for their own are few and far between, much more angels who learn to feel and choose to stay in heaven.”

“As a human…” Yixing laughs, eyes disappearing, cheek dimpling. “It’s different. You feel it everywhere.”

*

Joonmyun thinks about robots. Angels had potential inside of them that could be awakened. It just wasn’t, most of the time. Or was it awakened a lot and he was just made not to think so? Were they all made not to think so? Lucifer was a prominent figure in his mind, the most famous one to awaken his curiosity—and as humans say, curiosity killed the cat. _But it’s an urban legend,_ Joonmyun’s brain insists.

Joonmyun thinks of Yixing, and then of Luhan—who at this point, he is sure, has fully awakened his own and may just be staying in heaven for shits and giggles, he doesn’t know, really, Luhan’s pretty hard to figure out, and Joonmyun hasn’t mastered this Socratic method of thinking yet (a part of him is still horrified, _Questioning everything! How impudent!_ , but another part of him wants to know more, see more, understand more, talk to Kris more—)—and maybe even Minseok, and maybe even others too—

Was everything he knew, the thoughts in his head from the moment he was made, a lie?

*

“What did you like best about living?” Joonmyun asks. The lights change and the cars move forward.

“Singing,” Baekhyun says, hands in his pockets.

Joonmyun wonders what Kris will answer, when his time comes. He wonders why he wants Kris to mention him.

*

Kris walks around, but no signs of Joonmyun appear. If he’s being honest, he’s forgotten what it feels like to have a constant, and Joonmyun—strange, pragmatic, yet somehow still innocent—pulls emotions out of him like no one else has ever been able to do. There’s an irony in there somewhere, he knows, because Joonmyun himself isn’t capable of feeling, and yet—

Kris leans on the railing and watches the water flow below him while he waits for the fireworks.

He knows that he is becoming too attached to this angel, this otherworldly being. Part of him doesn’t care and just wants to see Joonmyun, talk to him, see Joonmyun smile and mean it.

Mostly, he knows that Joonmyun will get bored and move on, focus his observations on another human. To a kinder one, one who is not haunted by blood, whose soul is not tainted. A good person. One that did not bow down to the struggles of life, lived righteously, and took the moral high ground. A strong person.

Soon, Joonmyun will realize there is nothing in Kris that can be salvaged; nothing in him worth saving, much less liking.

Kris lights a cigarette.

He thought he had mastered the art of not feeling long ago. It unsettles him that meeting someone who truly doesn't feel showed him that he still does.

*

“You’re not checking on your human today,” Luhan observes.

“I am getting too attached,” Joonmyun says. A foreign feeling bubbles up inside him, gripping his insides.

“I hate to break it to you but—you’re way past that point,” Luhan says.

Joonmyun knows Luhan is right. He severely dislikes it when Luhan is right. He ignores Luhan for a full five minutes.

“What do I do?” he finally whispers.

“Well,” Luhans says, a laugh at the corner of his mouth. “What do you feel like doing?”

“I...” Joonmyun’s stomach lurches.

_What do you feel like doing?_

Luhan is looking at him, all traces of laughter gone. Luhan is looking at him like he’s known all along. That somewhere along seeing Kris’ hands shake when he took his first human life, somewhere along discussions that opened his mind, somewhere along sitting with Kris in silence for a night, somewhere along watching the fireworks with him, somewhere along getting to know Kris and seeing him differently than he saw himself, he has learned to feel. That his attachment is not only because he finds Kris interesting, a human to observe, but because he has developed _feelings_ for Kris.

For the first time in Joonmyun’s creation, he wants. Badly.

Joonmyun closes his eyes.

*

“I think,” Joonmyun says, as if weighing each word that leaves his mouth. “I may have grown attached to you.”

“Yeah?” Kris is stunned for a second, before he laughs in disbelief. What a strange time for Joonmyun to develop a sense of humor. “You angels don’t feel things, remember?”

Joonmyun wets his bottom lip. Kris eyes the action. “It’s not that we don’t have the capacity to feel. It’s just… we weren’t made with it ready, unlike you humans. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn.”

Kris’ heart constricts. Carefully, guardedly, like he is too used to being disappointed to even _hope_ , he asks, “What are you saying?”

Joonmyun is quiet. He sorts out his thoughts.

Kris doesn’t take his eyes of Joonmyun, afraid he’ll disappear, blend into the shadows of his dark apartment, never to be seen again.

“I want to see you everyday. Be with you everyday. Do mundane things with you. See you smile—“ Joonmyun stops; he’s heard this speech before. Different words, sure, but the essence is just the same.

Oh.

_Oh._

Kris feels a little like the world is reeling. His hands shake. “Why me?”

“Why not?” Joonmyun asks, but his mind is running haywire at the realization. It is one thing to come to terms with his attachment.

It is another thing completely to realize his attachment runs deeper than he initially thought.

Kris closes his eyes; maybe Joonmyun will disappear if he opens them again. Maybe this is just a dream, maybe Kris’ mind has finally given up on him after years of stress and guilt. He doesn’t want it to be a hallucination, no, but he needs to be sure—he needs to know it’s real, that this being who’s showing him how there _is_ still a little bit of humanity left in him, something in him worth getting to know, Kris needs—he needs to know he’s not getting his hopes up for nothing.

He opens his eyes.

Joonmyun is still there.

Kris takes a deep breath, decides. It has always been all or nothing for someone like him. He walks closer.

Kris holds one of Joonmyun's hands is over his heart.

"Do you feel that?" Kris whispers, mouth pressing close to Joonmyun.

Joonmyun’s fingers lie flat against his chest. The fingers curl into a fist as Kris’ heart speeds up at the touch. Kris closes the distance between them.

"No," Joonmyun whispers when they break apart. His eyes are wide. "I can't."

He disappears.

Kris looks at his empty living room. The lights are off save for a lamp. He’d found it an antique store, shopping during what would’ve been Tao’s 21st birthday. It casts eerie shadows on the wall. Kris buries his face in his hands, rubs his tired eyes with his palms.

Maybe there really is a God and He’s fucking with Kris because of everything Kris has done.

Kris snorts. “Is this fun for you? Waving what I want under my nose then taking it away?” He says to the ceiling.

God—or The One Upstairs, as Joonmyun calls Him—doesn’t dignify him with an answer.

*

Joonmyun doesn’t know what to do. He wants to go back. He wants to run away. He wants to stay.

He wants.

He closes his eyes and breathes, arms extended on either side of him.

The wind rushes and ruffles his hair and jacket; he doesn’t feel it.

The light changes to green; he doesn’t see it.

He breathes.

His mind is at war. He wants to go back. He wants to run away. He wants to stay.

_He wants._

*

Joonmyun is standing on top of the stop light at the intersection. He looks down at the cars passing by. It has been a day and he has run through all the arguments, all the scenarios in his head—and somehow, somehow, he always comes back to this.

He wants. So he decides.

The way he chooses to go is forward, with everything he has. Even if it means leaving all he’s known, a life that gives him purpose, a life he’s used to.

"Don't do it," a voice says. He looks, and Luhan is watching him. Luhan's lips lift up into a smile. "Not here."

He nods to the cars passing below. “That’s going to hurt. And it’s not going to be pretty.”

In a flash, Joonmyun is next to Luhan, on top of a building.

"Where then?" Joonmyun asks.

"Somewhere safer," Luhan replies. "Where your human bones and flesh won't get crushed by an onslaught of cars, preferably."

They go to an abandoned house. Joonmyun thinks there used to be a garden out front; it’s overrun with weeds. Luhan instructs him to drop there instead.

“Are you sure about this?” Luhan asks. “I’ll only ask once.”

Joonmyun takes a deep breath.

“You can get hurt. You’ll feel pain. Fear. When you become human, your life _will_ end,” Luhan says. He doesn’t say, _you might get stuck in hell—living a human life over and over again._

“I’m sure.”

*

The first thing Joonmyun feels is pain. The second, joy.

The grass is damp against his back. His body feels uncoordinated and heavy and like it had taken a bad fall. He smells about ten different things at once.

Oh! And the colors! He doesn’t know the names of any of them, but _there are so many_. The sky is a different color than the clouds and the grass and the houses and the mailboxes and the intersection—the lights in the intersection were three different colors altogether!!

Joonmyun just sits and blinks there, dazzled, while Luhan laughs.

He gets his bearings much later and Luhan accompanies him to a familiar doorstep—he’s never had to ring the bell before, though.

*

He stands in front of Kris’ front door and blinks. It’s just a door.

And yet its presence is so daunting. It is the difference between here and there, between a life without Kris and…well.

A sudden onslaught of feelings hit him. What if Kris doesn’t feel the same? What if he is angry? What if Joonmyun gave up his immortality for nothing? How will he survive being human?

Joonmyun stands frozen in front of the door. The doorbell switch is covered with a sheen of dust.

The decision is taken out of his hands when Kris opens the door, almost an hour after Joonmyun arrives. He looks surprised to find Joonmyun there.

Joonmyun swallows.

“Hi,” Joonmyun says, standing awkwardly. He shuffles his feet on the welcome mat. They make a rough noise.

“Hi,” Kris says, opening the door wider. His brow is furrowed. “I knew there was someone out here, I thought they sent someone to—never mind. Why are you standing out here?”

Joonmyun looks at him, then reaches up and cradles his face. He laughs, tears springing to the corner of his eyes. Warmth floods beneath his palm. “Oh.”

Kris looks at him, managing to look more confused. Joonmyun remembers his hasty exit the last time that were together. He doesn’t apologize.

“I’m human now,” Joonmyun says. There is warmth flooding his chest, threatening to take over his whole body.

Kris looks at him and feels like his world has been turned upside down. “How?”

“I fell,” Joonmyun says, rubbing his arms. There are grass stains on his jacket.

Kris swallows. He is wearing an expression Joonmyun doesn’t recognize—not on Kris’ face, anyway.

“You can... you can do that?” Kris asks.

Joonmyun nods, fingers skating over Kris' face before his hands fall to his sides.

“Why?”

Joonmyun is still smiling. “I fell.”

Kris furrows his brow, opens his mouth—but he’s interrupted by arms closing around his neck. He feels the unspoken _for you_ in Joonmyun’s embrace.

Joonmyun is warm. Joonmyun smells like spring.

Joonmyun is finally, finally real.

*

Joonmyun stands around at Kris’ apartment, eyes wide, taking in everything.

"It's like I'm seeing everything for the first time," Joonmyun says. "Although... the inside of your apartment is mostly the same color as it was when I was an angel."

Kris has nothing to say to that, so he shrugs. He watches as Joonmyun runs his hand over the leather sofa, feeling the texture. His heart beats faster watching Joonmyun take his first new look at his apartment.

"There are so many things I must learn... Colors… Texture… How to live like one of you," Joonmyun turns and looks at Kris. He plays with the edges of his leather jacket, fingers clutching the ends.

Kris realizes that Joonmyun is afraid. That Joonmyun has thrown away everything—his immortality, his life, for him. And he is not asking for anything in return.

Kris swallows. His constant is right here in his living room. His constant has become human. "Don't worry. I'll be here for you."

Joonmyun’s eyes shine bright when he smiles.

*

Joonmyun is holding a knife, touching the wooden end, observing his reflection in the steel metal. He runs a finger slowly to the ridged edges. He presses the edge to his palm. Pain spurts from his palm, a line of blood trickling out. Joonmyun watches fascinated, even as the knife drops to the floor. The blood trickles down his wrist.

“What color is that?” Joonmyun asks, dazed.

Kris looks up and sees him, mutters a curse. He knocks things over as he searches for something, grabbing Joonmyun’s hand and running it under the sink.

Joonmyun hisses but keeps watching the brightest color he’s seen swirl down the drain.

“What?” Kris asks, lifting Joonmyun’s hand up above his head to help stop the bleeding. He starts bandaging the wound.

“It’s such a beautiful color,” Joonmyun says. He smiles.

“….Red. It’s red,” Kris says. “Stop smiling.”

“Is all blood like that?” Joonmyun asks, facing him. He winces when Kris slathers medicine on the cut.

“Yeah,” Kris says, voice quiet as he bandages Joonmyun’s hand. He keeps taking peeks at Joonmyun from under his lashes.

Joonmyun hums.

“You’re not allowed in the kitchen,” Kris decides. Holding Joonmyun’s hand, he leads him to the living room. They have a lot of work to do.

*

Joonmyun is a fast learner. He is already familiar with humans and their technology. He is easily distracted though, by the simplest things—the colorful wings of a butterfly, the wind, the smell of bacon, a spinning top, the heat of boiling water.

He also finds that being an angel in the human world is a lot easier than being a human in the human world.

As an angel, he could be anywhere in the blink of an eye, just by thinking of a location. As a human—he has to walk, take confusing public transportation, get jostled by other humans.

Then there are the smells—the smell of cheese melting, burgers frying, flowers, new books, old books, grass—and then there’s dog waste in the park, dumpsters, fish in the grocery aisle. Kris takes him everywhere he can, proud of the fact that he is the one showing Joonmyun all these things for the first time. Selfishly, Kris knows that Joonmyun will never forget him like this—that everything he sees will always contain the memory of Kris, and he wants it that way.

Kris takes Joonmyun on a food trip and laughs and laughs at him as Joonmyun tastes bitter, spicy, sour, and sweet. Joonmyun can’t resist and tries to put almost anything edible in his mouth. There’s a story about a cigarette butt in there too, but Kris is still kind of horrified about it.

But the sights— _oh, the sights!_ Joonmyun’s seen everything before, but _never in color_. It’s enough that everything is new again.

*

They sit on the embankment and watch the fireworks.

Joonmyun’s eyes are wide, his mouth open in a little ‘o.’

“Wow,” he keeps saying. “Wow.”

Kris laughs.

*

Joonmyun grows into a personality. He becomes a human that smiles often, at everything, in all situations. When Joonmyun likes something, when he’s amazed at something (and it happens a lot), his smile is as bright as a thousand suns. When he’s confused or embarrassed, he laughs, an awkward sound that’s different from when he’s truly happy.

It seems like he’s taken to heart what Kris said about being serious and smiling and although Kris wants to take it back, he can’t find it in himself to do so.

Joonmyun is fucking beautiful when he smiles.

*

For human Joonmyun, the world is something new, something that astonishes at every turn. Kris is more than a little charmed; for him and everyone else, the world is a matter of course. Hardly anything amazed him anymore, in the way that everything becomes ordinary when you get older.

Joonmyun likes colors and prints. His wardrobe slowly builds up over the weeks, ghastly things that Kris tries to discourage him from choosing but ends up buying for him anyway. Joonmyun grins at him over a rack of red and green sweaters, exclaiming over the different detailed holiday prints woven in the design.

Kris smiles at him, a little sad. Was that emotion called wistful?

“May you never grow so used to the world that nothing will amaze you anymore,” Kris says.

Joonmyun thinks that is impossible; that there will always be something new to discover, something new to learn every single day. Already, he feels like life is rushing past him, a kiss on the cheek and she’s out the door, leaving Joonmyun standing to hurry and follow. His human life feels like it’s on fast forward, compared to his life as an angel.

As an angel, he could even spend hours on end cataloging his days and thoughts. Now—now there are too many things he wants to do, see and feel, he can hardly keep track of them all, much less spend all day wrapped up only in his thoughts with no distractions. Since taking the fall, he’s been awash in sensations, so focused on enjoying life, on _being alive_ , on taking as much as he can from this experience, because—because he knows it will end one day.

It is a far cry from the initial passivity, the distant observer role of an angel.

He says this out loud to Kris, and ends with a smile that says, _you were right; human lives are more beautiful._

Kris buys him a gramophone.

*

Touching—and being touched—is a feeling that Joonmyun found no words to describe. Kris told him there are words for that, like _smooth_ (the marble countertop in Kris’ kitchen) and _rough_ (some weird square that Kris called sandpaper) and _soft_ (the thing Kris sleeps on) and _hard_ (almost everything in this world, really).

“So what’s this then?” Joonmyun asks, cradling Kris’ wrist between his hands.

Kris looks at him. “What do you think?”

“Well…” Joonmyun purses his lips. “It’s smooth and the bones underneath are hard.”

“There are other ways to feel things,” Kris says. His eyes are dark.

“How?”

“Like this,” Kris murmurs. He lifts Joonmyun’s chin up, and presses their lips together slowly.

“How’s that?”

Joonmyun licks his lips. “Wet?”

Kris laughs, curls his fingers into the back of Joonmyun’s neck. “Close your eyes,” he says. Joonmyun does and Kris kisses him again. Their lips align, soft, until Kris slowly opens his mouth to draw Joonmyun’s lower lip between his. Joonmyun feels a churning in his gut, and is reminded of the fireworks display Kris took him to see the other day—only this time, the fireworks are bursting beneath his eyelids.

Lips press into his jaw, the side of his neck, his collarbones; large hands hold his hips steady. Joonmyun is shaking and he doesn’t know why but he knows he doesn’t want it to stop.

“Don’t bite down, okay?” Kris mutters into his chin. Joonmyun blinks as something wet traces across his lower lip. His eyes flutter closed at the sensation, eyelashes brushing Kris’ cheeks. Kris’ tongue traces the inside of his mouth, slowly running over the roof, tangling with his tongue. Joonmyun moans and tries not to bite down at the surprising sensation, fingers squeezing Kris’ biceps.

Soon, his legs are wrapped around Kris’ waist and he’s being hoisted off to bed, the mattress bouncing against his back.

Kris looks at him then, his eyes soft, tender, and _oh,_ this was the way Yixing looked when—but Kris is speaking, words slowly filtering in Joonmyun’s brain, “If it makes you uncomfortable, tell me to stop, okay?”

Joonmyun tries to answer, swallows. He feels like his tongue is too big for his mouth. He nods instead. Kris kisses him again, but this time his fingers have slid under Joonmyun’s shirt, dancing along the planes of his ribs. Joonmyun’s shirt is tossed aside and the way Kris looks at him again makes Joonmyun shiver—and then he can’t think anymore; lips are at his neck, wet and slightly ticklish, and he’s never felt anything like this before, his body almost out of his control, reacting in ways he doesn’t know how to handle. He tries to focus, quick stings of pain that morph into pleasure when he feels teeth and then a soothing tongue on his neck, thumbs rubbing insistent circles over his nipples.

He shifts his hips, an unfamiliar need building, even as his heart races and he tries to breathe.

“Kris,” he manages, hips shifting again and he gasps when his movement brings an even sharper pleasure between his legs. So he does it again, feeling the strength of Kris’ thigh between his own, and fuck those fireworks were multiplying under his eyelids.

“Not yet,” Kris murmurs, his large hands bracketing Joonmyun’s hips and pushing them down gently. His lips and tongue work on a spot behind Joonmyun’s ear and Joonmyun feels like crying at the stirring in his gut, the way his heart is racing, the denial of pleasure and he wants wants wants that feeling again—

“This okay?” Kris asks and it takes Joonmyun a second to notice his pants have been removed, his cock lying against his belly.

“I—“ Joonmyun says, frowns at his stomach. “It’s never done that before.”

Kris laughs into Joonmyun’s neck, chest rising and falling and it makes his shirt brush against Joonmyun’s length. Joonmyun’s eyes widen at the sensation.

“I really don’t know what to do,” Joonmyun says, flushed, even though he knows that Kris knows that.

Kris smiles at him again, the smile where Joonmyun can notice his gums, the one that makes him look more human and less like a billboard advertisement. Lips find Joonmyun’s chin, his nose, his forehead.

“Don’t worry. For now, all you have to do,” Kris takes Joonmyun’s earlobe between his teeth, “is feel.”

It’s then that Kris wraps a hand around Joonmyun and Joonmyun gasps, hands scrambling for purchase on Kris’ shoulders, fingers digging in the soft fabric of Kris’ shirt, the material sliding over his overheated skin. There’s a stirring in his gut, his heart racing and his breath coming out in rapid succession; it’s more sensations he doesn’t know what to do with and he can’t _think_ —the heat continues to build inside him, Kris’ lips finding his own again and it barely takes three strokes of Kris’ large hand wrapped around him before he gasps into Kris’ mouth, hips arching off the bed, eyes blown wide.

Kris is surprised, but he schools his features back to normal when Joonmyun comes down from his high and turns to him.

“Uhm. Wow,” Joonmyun says.

Krs smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Joonmyun lifts a hand and traces them.

“How do I—you—” Joonmyun says but finds that he’s lost the ability to construct sentences.

Kris chuckles, tosses his own shirt off. “That was the human version of heaven.”

His tone is mock serious and on some plane, Joonmyun thinks he really does believe that.

“Trust me, heaven is nothing like that,” Joonmyun says.

Kris laughs and Joonmyun finds himself reaching up to wrap his hands around Kris’ neck. When Joonmyun leans up to kiss him, he hears Kris’ sharp intake of breath and thinks that maybe, he isn’t the only one feeling all this. The thought sends tingles through his whole body, thinking if he can make someone feel that way, if people can make each other feel that way—happy, stomach churning, butterflies—then that was more than amazing.

Maybe The One Upstairs wasn’t so crazy, making these humans, after all.

*

When Joonmyun hesitantly kisses along Kris’ jaw and neck, Kris tenses.

“Am I doing it wrong?” Joonmyun whispers, hands frozen.

“No,” Kris says, bracing himself on his forearms next to Joonmyun’s head. “I just might come too soon.” He motions to the sticky mess on Joonmyun’s stomach.

“Oh,” Joonmyun frowns. “But…isn’t that good?”

Kris smiles and nips his nose, before grabbing tissues to wipe his stomach.

“Sorry, I just don’t…like putting that in my mouth,” Kris says, shooting the tissues in the wastepaper basket.

“Why would you?” Joonmyun asks, eyes round in confusion. Kris laughs again before running his fingers down Joonmyun’s sides. He kisses Joonmyun’s collarbone and soon Joonmyun is awash in new sensations again, his fingers tangled in Kris’ hair when Kris runs his tongue repeatedly over a nipple. One of Kris’ hands is rubbing at the inside of his thigh, thumb occasionally brushing against his balls.

Joonmyun doesn’t know what to focus on, so he anchors his gaze on Kris’ blonde hair as the other trails a path down his chest.

 _Breathe_ , Joonmyun thinks when Kris mouths at the inside of his thigh, biting and marking the white flesh.

 _Breathe breathe breathe_ , Joonmyun breathes. _Breathebbreathe_ when Kris’ breath ghosts over him, tongue slowly tracing patterns. He lets out a choked whine when Kris’ mouth finally descends and Joonmyun’s lost, one hand clutching the bed sheets, the other gripping Kris’ hair.

How had he thought that living without any kind of feeling was enough? It’s not just the pleasure tingling up his spine, or the way he runs out of breath when Kris does that thing with his tongue; it’s the way he feels when Kris just _looks_ at him, when he smiles and—and other things, amazing things like the sun warming his face, the color red, fireworks, and the breeze running through his hair.

Kris has lubed fingers inside him now, fingers rubbing insistently on a spot that makes Joonmyun’s breath catch. It stings a little, but Kris is patient, mutters soothing words in his ear and distracts him with his mouth.

“Heaven is not like this—but I think you will still like it,” Joonmyun mumbles.

Kris laughs, a little self-deprecating.

“You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be,” he whispers into Joonmyun’s skin.

*

Kris rinses them both, hand splayed on the small of his back, their chests flush together as the water runs over them.

There’s a thing humans do, mostly to infants; they’d bring them to a church and wash them with ‘blessed’ water, to ease their entrance to heaven. Joonmyun thinks this is like that, only in reverse. This is his rebirth in the human world.

Kris wonders what introducing a former angel to the sins of the flesh says about him.

*

“Sex,” Joonmyun says.

“Yeah,” Yixing laughs, eyes crinkling. “There is that.”

Yixing’s apartment is clean and well-lit. Everything gives off an aura of purity and neatness and there are no dark corners. Light shines through the curtains on the big windows. It is a far cry from Kris’ apartment and Joonmyun wonders how the people he’s come to like the most in this world are so different. He wonders if all humans are this different too.

“And it’s everything else too,” Joonmyun stops, fumbles. The human Joonmyun has a harder time constructing sentences, translating his feelings into words, overwhelmed by the abundance of different emotions he can feel at once.

Yixing nods, smiling. Yixing understands, anyway.

*

They are walking down a pier, ice creams in hand. The place is alive with noise, running children and couples standing by the bay. A man holding balloons stands in the corner, handing a red balloon to a small child. Joonmyun sees Kyungsoo nearby, in his black jacket and jeans, glancing at him before gently guiding the child away from an oncoming cyclist.

Joonmyun takes in the blue of the sea, and then the blue of the sky. He looks at the shapes of the clouds, the colors of the balloons, the prints on peoples’ clothes. He inhales the smell of salt from the water and the hotdogs roasting along the dock, the scent of Kris’ aftershave. He squeezes the warm hand holding his, content.

Kris is looking at him. Smiling. It's a weird smile.

Joonmyun waits for him to talk.

"When you get used to this world... you won't think as much of me," Kris says, that smile still on his face.

 _You don’t see yourself the way that I do,_ Joonmyun thinks. He schools his face into a frown. “I’ll always think the world of you.”

*

Joonmyun is dancing. There is something on the television, and he is following it, step for step. It feels fucking amazing. He spins, sweat on his brow. The hairs on his arms are on end, and at the back of his neck, he feels a tingling like someone is watching him. He smiles and continues dancing, arms moving to copy the person on the television. He laughs when he successfully finishes the routine.

A chuckle comes from the corner of the room. Joonmyun turns and smiles. "I knew you were watching the whole time."

Luhan smiles at him. "So you did." Joonmyun flops down on the couch and enjoys the way the soft cushion feels on his tired muscles. Luhan is blonde. Joonmyun never knew that. He wonders if all the other angels had different hair and skin colors too.

"Why have you never fallen?" Joonmyun asks. It has been bothering him for a long time now. It was Luhan who wanted to see colors, Luhan who wanted to stand under the rain. It was Luhan who inadvertently put the idea in his head.

Luhan smiles. "Because I have no reason to."

They stare at each other. Joonmyun tries to read Luhan's eyes. Staying with humans as long as Luhan had and not learning to love seems kind of impossible. Joonmyun thinks of hotel pillars, burgers, rain, colors, and Minseok, and it all makes sense. A car pulls up on the driveway. Luhan grins at him, nods in a 'See-you-later' fashion and disappears.

"Hi," Kris says, smiling as he is greeted with an armful of Joonmyun.

Joonmyun grins at him. Kris leans down and kisses him.

When they break apart, Kris's hands around Joonmyun's waist, Kris asks, "What were you doing?"

Joonmyun smiles, thumb drawing circles on the back of Kris's neck. "Just enjoying the simple things."

They stand and kiss for a long time.

*

Kris’ phone rings that afternoon. Joonmyun is bundled in a hideous Christmas sweater, head on Kris’ lap, trying to make sense of a sitcom. The phone rings and the sound feels like it reverberates through the apartment.

Kris feels his face turn pale. He excuses himself and takes the call in his room, face a stoic mask. Behind him, the sitcom’s laugh track trills. He answers the call, subdued, business-like.

The past few weeks with Joonmyun have been amazing—and the sudden noise feels like he has been just forcefully dragged back down to reality. The one where he is an assassin. Nothing more.

Maybe Joonmyun doesn’t think anything of killing. Maybe for Joonmyun it’s Kris’ purpose. And Kris, Kris wants to believe that. Wants to go back to believing that he doesn’t care about anything, that he can take lives without guilt, wants to fool himself that he had been able to do that since the first time he shot a person.

But he’s got Joonmyun now.

He doesn’t want to be that person with so much blood on his hands.

He doesn’t want to touch Joonmyun with these hands. He wants to be better.

He paces his room after he takes the call; his mind is a mess. He doesn’t know why this bothers him so much—Joonmyun doesn’t care about what he does for a living. Joonmyun knows what he does and doesn’t care; he couldn’t ask for a more understanding partner.

Except Joonmyun doesn’t understand, not fully, does he?

What it means to take a fellow human life?

*

“I have to go tonight,” Kris says. He looks for his gun, cigarettes, gloves.

“Oh,” Joonmyun says, leaning against the door. His sweater is a size too big, slipping over his hands. “A job?”

“Yeah.” Kris looks up at him. Joonmyun looks so innocent; even if he has seen more deaths in this world than Kris has. It is one thing to be an observer—to just see and learn; another thing to participate—to feel and understand. Kris started seeing these lines clearly since getting to know Joonmyun. He wonders when Joonmyun will realize the difference.

Joonmyun smiles. “It’s weird to think that I won’t be the one escorting that soul…”

Kris doesn’t know what to say to that.

*

Joonmyun continues watching the sitcom, smiling up at Kris before giving him a goodbye kiss. Kris can see the light from the TV screen through the curtains on the front window.

 _Just one last time,_ Kris decides as he closes the door to his apartment and faces the chilly night air.

He doesn’t know what the hell to do for a living afterwards, but he’ll figure it out. He has Joonmyun now.

They’ll figure it out.

*

It’s Minseok who visits this time.

“Hi,” Minseok’s voice is quiet, subdued. The morning light filters through the dark curtains.

“Good morning,” Joonmyun replies, smiling. Maybe he can try making pancakes for Kris today. He’s watched him enough times. He pokes through the wooden cupboards.

“Joonmyun,” Minseok says. His black clothes match Kris’ dark furniture.

“Yeah?” Joonmyun asks, running his finger down the instructions on the back of the pancake box.

“Joonmyun, Kris is gone,” Minseok says.

Joonmyun freezes. The box drops to the floor, spilling white powder everywhere.

“Luhan picked him up this morning. I guess there was trouble at his job,” Minseok says softly.

Joonmyun understands why it’s Minseok and not Luhan who is here. Minseok is always calm.

“Please leave,” Joonmyun says.

“Joonmyun,” Minseok starts.

“Please,” Joonmyun says. When he turns to face Minseok, his mouth is upturned into a smile. His eyes are telling a different story.

Minseok looks at him. “You’ve adapted well.”

He disappears.

*

“Do you regret it?” Kyungsoo whispers. It’s been a week and Joonmyun feels like he’s been strung dry. His eyes are painful from crying, his heart heavy and hollow at the same time.

The pier is bustling with noise. Kyungsoo stands next to Joonmyun; they watch as the balloon man ties a string to a child’s wrist. She runs off, the red balloon trailing behind her.

Joonmyun closes his eyes.

The world is so unfair. _This_ world is so unfair. He knows that fairness is a concept only made by humans. It fits.

He thinks of his life in heaven. Purposeful, unfeeling, needed, set. He imagines never taking the fall.

He thinks of living an eternity without knowing Kris . Not experiencing his warm embrace, his tender kiss, or even just one simple touch.

Slowly, he opens his eyes. Breathes. The air smells of the sea, hotdogs, laughter. It smells of life.

Joonmyun looks at Kyungsoo, “No.”

His heart tells him that even if he could only spend _one minute_ as a human with Kris, he would still take the fall.

For the first time since Kris’ death, he smiles. A real one. “I don’t regret it at all.”

_“So,” Luhan asks. “What did you like best about your life?”_

_Kris thinks of the fire, the orphanage, Tao. He thinks of the people who had died under his hands, his jail cell, the blood on the pavement. He thinks of his apartment—the first thing he called his own, his bed, french fries, and dumplings. He thinks of fireworks, rap music, playing cards with Chanyeol, cold beer. He thinks of the first snowfall, warm drizzles, flowers in the spring. He thinks of Joonmyun._

_He smiles._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I have a ko-fi [here](https://ko-fi.com/inmidnights)~


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